Subject: Doubling

From: Alice Deich <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 09 Mar 1997 10:51:42 -0500

To the Researchers/demonstators:

Backgammon without doubling isn't backgammon at all.  Doubling changes 
the stragegy, and prevents low-porbabiliy, come-back 'back' games.
Accepting the double that comes well before these endings will cost
a player money if the double is accepted. 

Backgammon with doubling is a complicated stragety game, but without 
doubling it is much closer to a children's game.

The danger is that playing without doubling will cause your program to
adopt inferior strategies for the real game with doubling.

Jim Deich

Psychology Department
Barnard College
Columbia University
[email-masked]